What Is 3m Corporation?

| - Lecture: “Managing Innovation and Fostering Corporate Entrepreneurship” (con’t)- Presentation & Annual Report follow up.

Corning has had a strong dedication to technology and innovation. However, heavy dependence on a single line of business of telecommunication led it to financial challenges. The case tells us about Corning’s strategic approach towards exploring new business prospects and large opportunities for its future sustainability. Corning’s road map for innovation in new market and technologies is systematic and structured. The dimension of this case is to answer the question how do entrepreneurs identify opportunities for new business ventures? According to Robert Baron, one

Product Innovation – Innovation of new products had failed many times and MTI has lost reputation with Wall Street. This process had been placed on the backburner and when the CEO came on board there were only six products in the pipeline. Therefore, to be successful in the future, MTI needs to invest more in R&D and focus on delivering new products.

Many businesses jump to the conclusion of thinking that if a company can be successful in one area, that it can be just as successful in another. Before making this assumption, businesses need to expand on potential challenges that they might encounter

firms It has been suggested that the disappointing performance of U.S. firms during the 1980s in technology-intensive, global markets was from failure to improve upon products and processes. It has been cited that "the U.S. makes the breakthroughs, while other countries, especially Japan, provide the follow-through." Revolutionary innovation has been contrasted with less dramatic advancements. Incremental improvement can turn products over and get more, newer models out. This may all sound dull, but the achievements can be exhilarating. American firms may have failed to follow up on their breakthroughs with such continuous improvements. Where there were successes, they were built upon a combination of breakthroughs and incremental improvements. It is the subject of yet another discourse as to what constitutes an innovation: a breakthrough or an incremental improvement, or both, and/or everything in between. 4. To take advantage of opportunity It is no surprise that surprises, often disappointing surprises, are the seeds of innovation. Take the oil companies. It is no surprise that some oil companies are becoming oil-andgas companies. Why? Because gas is found more often and in greater abundance than oil

General Motors applies the IEEE Spectrum Patents Scorecard to measure its patent prowess in the automotive and parts industry where GM was ranked third in the 2010 patent power rankings. This was a decline from the number one position it held in the 2008 patent power rankings. (7) Correspondingly, GM Engage is another tool that is exercised to measure innovation. It is a crowd sourcing instrument designed to harness the knowledge and creativity of every GM employee for product innovation. In other words, how receptive the culture is to open innovation. (8) On a whole the importance of innovation cannot be overestimated because it leads to prosperity and a higher quality of life for everyone.

This course for juniors and seniors explores firm strategies related to innovation and technological change. We focus on how the success of technological innovations—new products, processes, and services—depends on the firm’s business model. Other key topics include intellectual property rights and the management of technological uncertainty through organizational arrangements such as corporate venturing, spinoffs, and alliances.

The company has a strong terminal value of supporting a long-term investment philosophy. Two of the instrumental values used to achieve this are being courageous, and exercising self-discipline. One instance that showed both of these values was during the late 1990s. At that time, investments in technology companies, and the technology sector of the financial markets had been increasing at a high rate of return. This organization did not spend disproportionate resources creating or maintaining products to “chase” the returns on technology investments. That would be considered contrary to the company value of long-term investing. This showed both courage and self-discipline.

Jim Collins and his research team of 20 compared and contrasted how many companies made the leap to greatness and how other companies didn’t. Based on bundles of evidence and a large quantity of data, he and his team uncovered how

3M heavily based its business on innovation and while doing this it always supported its employees in terms of being innovative. 3M also always followed the alternative ways in order to increase their profit and market share, and they found that one of the best ways is through organizational innovation. Therefore, in order to improve their business 3M developed 6 different strategies over its history. These strategies helped 3M to promote entrepreneurship and increase customer satisfaction within the market.

The Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Corporation (3M) was founded in 1902. It reported sales revenues of $16.7 billion during the year 2000. These revenues came from 3M's six business divisions: industrial; transportation, graphics, and safety; healthcare; consumer and office; electro and communications; and specialty materials. All business divisions were profitable in 2000. The same year, the company made more than 60,000 products and about $5.6 billion sales came from products that had been introduced during the prior four years and

Q1. How has 3M’s innovation process evolved since the company was founded? Why, if at all, does 3M, known as the “hothouse” of innovation, need to regain historic closeness to the customer?

The company 3M is a diverse company that was incorporated on June 25, 1929 with presence in more than 10 industries alone. “3M products are sold through a number of distribution channels, including directly to users and through wholesalers, retailers, jobbers, distributors and dealers in a range of trades in a number of countries worldwide” ("3M Co," n.d., para. 1) The company head quarters is located in St. Paul Minnesota, however 3M has locations all over the United States. 3M is best known within the consumer industry with brands such as Post-it, Scotch, Scotch-Brite, Filtrete, O-Cel-O, Nexcare, and Command. “3M is one of 30 companies in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and also is a component of the Standard & Poor's 500

Tidd and Bessant (2009) argued that “Unless an organization is able to move into further innovation, it risks being left behind as others take the lead in changing their offerings, their operational processes or the underlying models that drive their business”.

Companies live and breathe innovation; or, at the terribly least, notice it basic to their success. Such companies are those that others ought to emulate for they recognize that to do business, as Peter Drucker prompt in an exceedingly recent Harvard Business review article, “Every firm—not simply businesses—needs one core competence: innovation.”